When I was in the Navy I was stationed in Boston, Mass. and Newport, Ri. The folk scene was really hot on the east coast during this time. When ever I could get off the ship I would head to the closest coffee house. Most of them had entertainment every night. As a young lad I spent a lot of time listening to Hank Williams, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, etc. I always loved it when one of their songs had harmonica in it. Then I heard Bob Dylan playing guitar and harmonica at the same time. That's all it took, I now knew what I wanted to do. I would spend my time at sea learning to play harmonica. It was really cool setting on the fantail of the ship at night under the stars watching the wake behind the ship. There was something special with the sound of the harmonica that would happen back there, especially at night. I met a guy by the name of Dale Ryder that liked to sing and we became good friends and started playing for the crew. We started what we called fantail concerts. It didn't take long before more musicians started showing up for the fun.
After being discharged I started to grow my hair long, grew a beard and became known as Hippie Hutch! Dean got out of the Navy about the same time so we started playing music together again. Marshall Tucker, Blind Faith, Pink Floyd, James Gang, James Taylor, too many to name. We would listen to underground radio late at night to try and catch the latest undiscovered band. We would drive out south into the corn fields pull over to the side of a rock road and sit on the trunk watch for shooting stars in milky way and listen to Triad Radio out of Little Rock, AR. We weren't in any bands during this time, but we did a lot of great jammin'! I would go out and sit in with bands and play harmonica often though. One of my buddies Bob Janeczko played in the Binge Band and I would set in with them and play the blues.
Dean and I built two of the coolest choppers in the area over one of the cold Chicago winters. The following summer we were off to every concert and festival we could find. What great times..... We called ourselves Sleazy Rider & William. Hanging' at the woods and jammin' that was all we had to do...... Life is good!
Here are a couple of audio clips I found on an old reel to reel I had laying around. Bob Dylen's Little Sadie and what I believe is an original I wrote called Travelin' Man, It's been so long that it's hard to really remember. Anyway, I was really surprized when I found them. Enjoy!